Blush in a shade of bruise
leaving trails on collars and bones.

"Siren, siren
Body language me.
Concave me in wrong angles.
Sift through my sand and prospector me."

Every man wants to be saved by an angel
but heaven's just a mirror of hell.

The heavy melting  of drug hazed bones
Confuses my curiosity with the sober

                              You cut me.
                                      To the quick.

Anger deep mortar holes smoldering through layers
I had carelessly constructed
Breathing through the cracks but just barely
Suffocation at it's most frightening
It is not the burn you must worry about
Just the ache

That is where I have kept these last months
A tangible, gut wrenching desire to be numb
I. Felt. Everything.
Strange dreams weaved colorfully throughout
Waking in a cold sweat
Looking for flowers but all I find is **dirt

When I was 18 I learned a lesson in jewelry:
A pocketwatch that taught about loss
that was never mine to lose.

I borrowed the euros I paid for it.

Most loss is something felt by ranchers
and bankers
and stock brokers.
Because they own the things they have.

You are not mine and so I cannot lose you.

That's free sadness
and free happiness, too.

I passed a woman
walking her dog,
and I smiled at her,
and she didn't smile back.
And as I walked on, I realized
I never really smiled.
Just parted my dry lips
in an O.

I looked to my feet
and saw an earthworm,
lying in the middle
of the sidewalk.
Dead and dried
from the sun.
And I thought to myself,
He is so exposed.

And I heard a dry laugh,
and it was my own.

Your distance felt like how it looks when cops break up a riot
with pepper spray.

I kept saying I've been here before.

I went through all the old poems I wrote
and I realized I was afraid to write some about you.
Because you know the rule:
Whatever you write becomes truth.

I kept texting my friends about the light pole sticking out of my chest
and they all said things like
"I think you're just making a bigger deal out of the light pole sticking out of your chest than you need to be."

The moment I felt you leaving I beartrapped you
so no wonder you're bleeding
I started seeing visions of the amount of time I would spend crying in my bed
divided by trying to remember everything you said
and what tone you said it in and what time of the day it was and what I said before that and what tone I said it in and what time of day it was and what it was in response to and why did I say that But in the middle of my trench warfare...


I heard a lightbulb on the top of my head
that sounded like me, but smarter, and she said

"You gotta give love to get love and you gotta do it for free."


So this is how it feels to stop drowning.

When the aliens came to take our humanity
they made us choose which part.

I chose sleep
and felt like I had won
until every night you left me for it.

When you lie there gone to a place I could never go
I guess it felt like I couldn't do anything
but wait for you to come back.